Soon, smartphone app could detect fake products

London, July 7 : Researchers have developed a technology that could make identifying fake products as convenient as simply scanning them with a smartphone app.

Whether aerospace parts or luxury goods, the new technology will make counterfeiting impossible, said the researchers.

“It is wonderful to be on the front line, using scientific discovery in such a positive way to wage war on a global epidemic such as counterfeiting, which ultimately costs both lives and livelihoods alike,” said Professor Robert Young of Lancaster University.

With this technology, scheduled to be presented at the ongoing Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in London, a smartphone app will be able to read whether a product is real or fake.

The new invention was made possible through pioneering work on the thinnest, strongest and versatile material, graphene.

Materials like graphene are one-atom thick (so-called 2D materials). They can emit light that can be measured with a camera.

When light is shone on the 2D material, tiny imperfections shine causing the material to emit light.

This glow can be measured as a signal, unique only to that small section of material.

The signal can then be turned into a number sequence which acts as a digital fingerprint.

The small flakes which are invisible to the human eye and 1/1000th of a human hair can then be added to everyday items such as money, credit cards, passports and gig tickets.

A smartphone app can then read a photo to tell the unique signal from the flakes and detect whether the product is genuine or fake through the right fingerprint or wrong fingerprint.

The customer will be able to scan the optical tag on a product with a smartphone, which will match the 2D tag with the manufacturer’s database, the researchers said.

This has the potential to eradicate product counterfeiting and forgery of digital identities, two of the costliest crimes in the world today.

This patented technology and the related application can be expected to be available to the public in the first half of 2018, and it has the potential to fit on any surface or any product, so all global markets may be addressed, according to the researchers.

The device comes with 18:9 Full HD+ display, 4,000mAh battery and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor.

It also sports a 12MP rear camera, up to 4GB RAM and 64GB storage and an LED Selfie-light for low-lighting conditions.

Redmi Note 5 Pro will cost Rs 13,999 for the 4GB RAM and 64GB variant and Rs 16,999 for the 6GB RAM and 64GB ROM option.

Housing the dual rear-camera system (12MP+5MP) and a 20MP selfie shooter, Redmi Note 5 Pro is the first Xiaomi smartphone to come with the “Face Unlock” feature. It also has the latest Snapdragon 636 processor.

“Today, we have 57 per cent market share in the online segment in India. Xiaomi is also second biggest offline brand in the country with 11 per cent share. We shipped nearly 9.6 million Redmi Note 4 handsets in 2017,” Manu Kumar Jain, Xiaomi India Managing Director and Global Vice President, told the gathering at the event.

Redmi Note 5 Pro also features Beautify 4.0 — a method to software-tune images that uses algorithms, redesigned especially for Mi Fans in India to adapt to beards and accessories such as bindis and nose rings.

Like Redmi Note 5, featuring an 18:9 full HD+ display with rounded corners, Redmi Note 5 Pro gives 12.5 per cent more display area compared with smartphones using 16:9 screens.

Available in Black, Gold, Rose Gold, Blue colour variants, Redmi Note 5 and Redmi Note 5 Pro will go on sale on Flipkart and Mi.com on February 22.

Xiaomi also launched a smart LED TV called “Mi TV 4” (55-inch) with 4K panel along with HDR10 in India.

At just 4.9mm slim, the Rs 39,999 TV is the world’s thinnest LED TV and comes with an intelligent content-first “PatchWall” software, redesigned for India. It also support for 13 system languages including 12 Indic languages out of the box.

The TV sports Corning Iris Glass light guide plate, which is three times more expensive and five times harder than plastic light guide plates usually found in most other TVs.

“Mi TV 4” also has a dual-speaker set-up boasting Dolby and DTS audio.

“We are excited to kick off 2018 with three exciting products — Redmi Note 5, Redmi Note Pro and Mi LED TV 4 and hope that Mi Fans will enjoy the new technology,” Jain added.

Redmi Note 5, Note 5 Pro to be 100% manufactured in India: Xiaomi

New Delhi, Feb 14: In line with its commitment to make in India, Xiaomi will manufacture its two new offerings — Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 and Note 5 Pro — at its two manufacturing units in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh, Xiaomi India said on Wednesday.

“Like our other products, these devices will be 100 per cent manufactured in India. Majority of these two devices will be manufactured at two of our units housed in Sri City. We will have more to share on the overall manufacturing front for the country soon,” Xiaomi India Managing Director and Global Vice President Manoj Kumar Jain told IANS.

The company manufactures over 95 per cent of its smartphones (sold in India) at its plants in Sri City.

“We are geared up to take ‘Make in India’ to the next level by setting up more manufacturing units for other categories (of products) too,” Jain added, on the sidelines of the launch event here.

The company, in partnership with the domestic manufacturing firm Hipad Technology, recently announced its third manufacturing plant in the country based out of Noida, which is its first facility for power banks.

“Among the top 10 smartphones in India in 2017, six were Xiaomi phones. We have 57 per cent market share online and nearly 11 per cent share offline in the country. The challenge is now to defend the online territory and ramp up our offline presence for a strong year-long growth period,” Jain noted.

LinkedIn launches ‘Scheduler’ to ease hiring process

San Francisco, Feb 14: Professional social network site LinkedIn on Wednesday launched a new tool called “Scheduler” that will help ease the hiring process both for recruiters and candidates as well as avoid fallouts.

The new tool would help candidates and recruiters save time spent on scheduling a meeting and help recruiters focus their energies on hiring strategically and onboarding the best candidate, the Microsoft-owned company said in a statement.

Using this feature, candidates or recruiters can reach each other via InMail to see one’s calendar availability and reserve an interview time that works best for both.

It also gives candidates the liberty to feed in their contact information to accelerate this process.

“Our goal is to help you spend less time on the back-and-forth-and a lot more time delighting, advising, and helping candidates make the decision to join your company,” said Peter Rigano, Senior Product Manager at LinkedIn, in a blogpost late on Tuesday.

“LinkedIn ‘Scheduler’ is just the latest way that we’re working to make recruiters more productive, powerful, and personal,” Rigano added.

To use the feature, recruiters first need to automatically provide availability via InMail by syncing “Scheduler” to Office 365 or Google calendar.

This would automatically set the availability for potential interview times.

Then, using a new “InMail” message, recruiters can easily send a scheduling link directly to the candidate of interest.

The link shares a real-time view of the recruiter’s calendar availability with candidates who can then choose what time works best for them, add their phone number and confirm the meeting.

Further, advance settings allows recruiters to manage preferences such as time zones, availability, length of meetings and same-day meetings.